With the development of digital technologies, cable television services are increasingly providing their customers with video-on-demand (“VOD”) services. In a typical VOD system, the cable multiple service/systems operator (“MSO”) receives movies from content providers, stores the movies locally, and then transmits a movie to a viewer upon the viewer's request. Content providers generally transmit movies to MSOs via satellite transmissions or via a high-speed terrestrial network using appliances commonly referred to as pitchers. To receive the transmissions from the content providers, MSOs deploy a number of appliances commonly referred to as catchers. Catchers receive the transmissions from the content providers and, after receiving a complete package, relays the package to a VOD server.
Current VOD systems require a one-to-one pitcher-to-catcher ratio. That is, current catchers are incapable of receiving multiple, simultaneous transmissions from more than one pitcher or uplink facility. Consequently, MSOs typically deploy multiple catchers, i.e., a farm of catchers, so that they are able to simultaneously receive multiple transmissions from more than one pitcher or uplink facility. Unfortunately, catcher farms are ill-suited to handle conflicts that may arise when providing the received files to a VOD server, and bottlenecks in the flow of data between the catcher farm and the VOD server may arise.
Current catcher systems also fail to provide for meaningful visibility for monitoring the status of a transmission being received by a catcher. As a result, diagnosing the cause of an incomplete or corrupt file often proves difficult.
Consequently, there is a need for systems and methods that allow reception from multiple satellite transmitters in a VOD context using a single catcher/receive unit.
There is also a need for a single catcher/receive unit capable of receiving simultaneous multiple transmissions while also providing content management to manage the flow of data and to diagnose transmission errors.